Dru Clarke | From Call Taker to Assistant Director, Culture in 911, & Building with Fairfax

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, welcome or welcome back to the Womack Wire.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

Today's guest is someone that we've had the pleasure of spending time with in person at conferences this summer.

And every time that I get the chance to talk to him, I just feel like I walk away with something new to think about.

I would say he's one of the more or most refreshing voices we've come across in the public safety space.

Today, you can expect to hear from Drew Clark, Assistant Director of Operations at Fairfax County's 911 Center, one of the largest in Virginia, and founder of Change Talk, a leadership training firm serving public safety professionals nationwide.

We covered a ton of ground in today's conversation.

We hit on Drew's career journey, his philosophy on culture and people-first leadership in 911.

We discussed the staffing crisis and how Fairfax is looked at as a more innovative center and how they're thinking about AI adoption.

And we even had a conversation about what makes an industry partnership actually work, including a bit of our own story with Fairfax and Wilmack Continuity WFM.

Thank you so much to Drew for joining us on the podcast and to the Fairfax team for believing in us and choosing to work with us.

We are so grateful for our partnership.

Let's get into today's episode of the Wilmack Wire with Drew Clark.

Welcome to the Wilmack Wire.

I'm Emily Miller, joined by my co-host, Steve McDonald.

On this show, we talk to the drivers, the leaders, innovators, and decision makers pushing customer interaction technology and AI forward.

And because we're proud to call Western New York home, we also spotlight the drivers in our own community, the people and organizations shaping growth and innovation right here.

Let's get into it.

All right, we'll get things started with introducing our guests.

So he started as a call taker at Fairfax County in 2013, and he worked his way up through every level of the center.

He's now the assistant director of operations at Virginia's largest 911 center.

leading a team of 200 telecommunicators.

He launched Change Talk in 2020, which is a leadership training firm serving public safety professionals nationwide.

He's known for his philosophy of people before policy and culture before strategy.

He's a John Hopkins grad and regular keynote speaker at public safety conferences.

Welcome to the Wilmack Wire, Drew Clark.